“How did you possibly spot him?” Luthor asked.
“Because I was looking,” Vika said. “He is waiting for a clear shot. Don’t give him one.” She brandished her gun. It only held twelve bullets. They didn’t have a spare magazine.
“We all have to make a run for it at the same time or we’ll get picked off,” said Luthor.
Directly across the sidewalk Luthor noticed that there was an oddly empty alleyway between two buildings. The perfect place to get the hell out of the sniper’s sights and lose the carps.
As passengers filed off and onto the busy bus stop, they ducked and sprinted for the alley. Luthor didn’t hear any shots, but a sniper bullet well exceeded the speed of sound, Luthor knew it would hit before he heard anything. He didn’t hear the shot. Just as they entered the alley a huge chunk of pavement exploded right behind them.
He took a deep breath, but realized there was a reason the alley had been deserted. The unmistakable hulking mass of human flesh who called himself Pain stood between the aging brick walls with a submachine gun trained on them. On his left flank stood an equally intimidating man in black fatigues. To his right lounged a shorter, bald-headed man with a 2180 tattoo on his head. All three wore gelvar.
They dove behind an abandoned suburban dumpster that probably slept four every night. Strangely, no bullets plinked around them.
“Ostafal,” Vika breathed. Her face bled loathing.
“Forget about Ostafal,” Luthor said, “how the hell are we going to get out of this alive? They have three armed men and we have twelve smogging bullets.”
“Oh, and there is a sniper that will shoot us if we leave,” Michael offered.
“Why aren’t they shooting?” Tanya asked.
“They would rather shove us out into the street and let their sniper pick us off,” Luthor said.
“We will lose a gun fight and they know it,” said Vika. “With their sniper, we can’t do a damn thing. It’s exactly how I would have set up an ambush.”
Luthor had to admire Pain’s plan. They had the choice of facing down three armed soldiers in body armor, or running unprotected into the open. That sniper would probably have one of the high-end semi-automatic sniper rifles deployed by the seals in Antarctica. Those things were accurate beyond 1000 meters and could shoot as fast as a sniper could pull the trigger. A single seal sniper could take out an entire unit of Chinese soldiers if he managed to set up in the right spot.
Even if one of them did manage to elude those bullets, it wouldn’t be hard for Pain to run them down to finish the job. “I don’t like our odds with that sniper,” Luthor said.
Vika reached around the dumpster and fired one of their precious rounds. It echoed off the brick like a cathedral.
Vika grunted angrily, “hit him in the chest. They are coming closer.”
The last vestiges of the gun shot faded off the walls leaving a pregnant silence. Luthor knew he had only minutes to live, if they were lucky. Even the grim determination on Vika’s face looked more like the attitude of a Texan defending the Alamo, than one who expects to walk away. Luthor tried not to give into despair, but his brain didn’t seem to offer much in the way of hopeful ideas.
“You just stay alive,” Tanya said, “I will handle the sniper.”
What did you just say? Luthor thought.
“How?” Michael asked.
“Just shut up and give me all your BOGs. I’m going to need about ten minutes, I think.”
“I can’t give you the gun,” Vika said, “it would be suicide for us.”
“I don’t need it. Just give me your 126. Now.”
Luthor had used his to escape the dogs, but Vika and Michael handed her two each. She picked up a tattered cloth some suburbian had tossed in their hurry to escape the alley, and she picked up a trash bag. She slung the bag over her shoulder and began limping out of the alley. She was careful to keep the dumpster between her and Pain to hide from his sight.
“He will be looking for four people, particularly men,” she said. “He won’t suspect a single pathetic, Markless woman.”
Luthor looked at her a long moment. “Be safe,” he said. “Please.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
Luthor hoped she did. Otherwise, she would be splattered all over the sidewalk in a matter of seconds.
#
I’d better know what I’m doing. Tanya thought as she exited the alley. She kept her face down lest the sniper recognize her in his scope. She also intentionally did not act as if she were hiding. The sniper would be keying on people who ran out into the street, people who looked like they were going for cover, or anyone who seemed to be trying to avoid someone with enough firepower to turn them into ground beef. She limped slowly across the blasted pavement out in the open, careful not to hide behind the ramshackle, human-powered vehicles that transported passengers to the train station.
Every slow, agonizing, deceptive step she expected to feel a bullet pierce her flesh. What the hell am I doing? She wondered, but suddenly found herself praying with a fervency she hadn’t felt since church camp. Dear God, please keep me safe. There is an evil man who wants to kill me. He has the power and skill to do so. Lord, blind him so he doesn’t see me. Tears leaked down her dirty cheeks. Keep Luthor safe too, Lord. I love him. I really do. I know we haven’t been living according to your will, but I promise that will change if you get us out of this. Just please save us.
Then her foot slammed into the curb. She had made it across the street, free of any extra holes. A quick glance revealed the others were still alive for the moment. Pain hadn’t seemed to notice her either.
“Thank you, Jesus,” she breathed.
Safely out of the sniper’s focus, she quickened her step. There wasn’t much time, and a lot of building to climb.
#
Vika leaned around and fired another shot. Still no return fire echoed off the walls.
“Damn,” she said again.
“I thought you didn’t miss,” Michael said.
Vika gritted her teeth. “Gelvar gets in the way.” The infuriating man had no idea that this was the worst possible time to make jokes. She glared at him. Accidentally smiling was not a problem this time.
Strangely, his face softened. “I’m sorry. I’ll shut up. Kill the bastards for me.”
An apology? From the most self-absorbed, annoying man in history? The temptation to smile reared its ugly head again. Despite her all but guaranteed death, she found a sliver of joy in the change he seemed to be showing as of late. He truly wasn’t the same man that had drooled over her just weeks before. He learned—at least a little—and now tried to be less infuriating. There was something strangely endearing about a man who realized he was a worthless sack of excrement but tried to change.
She heard shuffling as Pain advanced a few more steps to hide behind the next pile of garbage. Heaped trash piles made unexpectedly effective cover.
“I’ve got eight bullets left,” Vika said in a hushed voice.
“They still aren’t firing,” Luthor replied.
“The carps will only take notice if they hear automatic fire.”
“This is New York City,” Michael said, “who are they to care about a couple of gunshots?”
“They are bleeding me dry,” Vika said, “they keep getting closer every time I don’t fire. Soon it’s going to be too late to escape even if Tanya gets rid of that sniper.”
“Then keep shooting,” Luthor said, “keep them away long enough to get out of here.”
“I’ve got a better idea. Save your bullets,” Michael said. He cupped his hands over his mouth and called over the dumpster.
“Hey Jose! Good to see you again. I haven’t seen any pussy since the last time we talked.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Jose called back, “you’re a dead man.”
“If I'm a dead man, why are you so scared of me?”
Vika nodded approvingly. She didn’t know if it was intentional or not, but his str
ategy was sound. Attack the weak link of the enemy and get him to make a mistake. The old teaching of Sun Tzu popped into her mind. “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” Of the three in front of them, Ostafal certainly had to be the weak link, and if Michael could rile him up enough, maybe he would do something stupid. If nothing else, it might buy them a few more minutes so Tanya could complete whatever task she believed could neutralize the sniper. Besides, it felt good to piss off Ostafal.
“Sorry I had to kill your lover, Ostafal, he said he missed you,” she called out. Not as pithy as Michael, but coming from her it had to sting.
“Keep talking when I shove this gun up your smogging cunt!”
Vika smiled. She would be dead in a few minutes, but at least she would have a little fun in the process. A good way to go out.
#
What the hell was I thinking? Tanya thought as she placed another double-BOG above her. She felt gravity shift with the 126 as she crawled forward another few feet. Straight up the side of the sniper’s building.
She tried not to look down as she retrieved the BOG below her. She had only climbed seven or eight stories and probably had at least another ten to reach the sniper. But already she felt the queasiness in the pit of her stomach that comes from standing a little too near a sheer ledge. She had never been particularly afraid of heights, but when she was suspended against a wall only by artificial gravity, she could empathize with Luthor’s own trepidation.
She didn’t know where the idea to use 126 to climb up a building came from, but it seemed an obvious extension of the technology. If she could increase gravity enough to outweigh earth’s pull, and then fasten that gravity to a fixed point above her with Eli’s polymer, she could theoretically climb anything. She basically just built a ladder of gravity and climbed up it. The only difficulty lay in trying to move in double strength gravity. The earth neutralized some of the power of 126, but her body felt like it weighed more than it ought and every movement taxed her a little too much. In spite of her growing fatigue, she still crawled forward, positioned just on the other side of the building to remain out of sight of the sniper.
She accidentally looked down. It didn’t feel like down, but down it was nonetheless. Disconcerting was a shadow of the word she really needed to describe the experience. If it could be mixed with unearthly it would be about right. She never could have imagined being in this position even a month ago. Fifteen stories off the ground, climbing to try to stop a sniper bent on killing all of them.
Killing. It seemed like all that she had seen since Geneva. Each death was etched into the living stone of her mind. It seemed like only yesterday when Vika had sliced open the agent’s throat on the seabus. Sometimes all she could think about was the blood spurting out the poor man’s neck. She had watched men shot in front of her, next to her, all around her. Sometimes managing any thought but those deaths became a chore.
And for what? What is the purpose for all this death? She answered her own question. Because everyone wants the 126 for themselves. Smogging energy. Why does there have to be so little of it? She knew as intimately as anyone the causative series of events that led the world to its current state. The world designed itself around a reckless use of oil and oil-based products. The entire American society would never have developed without access to a gas-powered car. The suburban ghost towns around the country stood as a testament to the folly of their blindness to decreasing oil reserves. It had become impossible to live in a place that required a car to do anything. Then to make matters worse, scientists discovered that many of the viable alternatives to oil—as well as oil itself—were steering the earth toward ecological disaster via global warming. Coal was subsequently banned out of a fear of its carbon output. Mining for natural gas followed soon after, because harvesting it out of the ground released too many greenhouse gases far worse than carbon. This artificially limited energy possibilities, decreasing supply of energy—and increasing demand of oil. It was only a matter of time before the oil bubble burst, and all society crashed. World War III made for a very sharp pin.
Now that a quarter of the world starved to death because there wasn’t enough energy to produce crops, electricity and the means to generate it, dominated the new carbon economy. Something as powerful as element 126 looked like a fresh water oasis to a desert wanderer. Control of 126 meant control of the world and unimaginable wealth.
At least that’s what Luthor believed. But at what cost? How many deaths were justified by his crusade to release it publicly? Starvation had run its course already, the world population had downshifted to compensate for lower energy, thus lower food supply. Hadn’t it? Most of the lives that 126 could have saved were already lost. So why kill more?
A crowd gathered below her, watching her climb the glassy exterior of the office like Spiderman, albeit a slow, female Spiderman sans spandex. All members of the crowd were scraggily, starving, pathetic wretches. Most had undoubtedly come from the now-extinct suburbs. They came to major cities around the world in the hundreds of millions in hope of jobs, food, and security from the rampant crime. Most found none of the above and were now stuck here with no jobs, no food, and even less hope. Tanya, defying gravity, as they understood it, broke up the monotony of their abject squalor. She tried to ignore them. An audience made climbing more difficult, whether the watchers were starving or not.
Roc’s voice seemed to echo in her mind “the pale horse still rides.” Revelation predicted that the fourth horseman would take the lives of a quarter of the world with his tools of scarcity and war. But Roc believed the Culling had not yet reached its conclusion. He had a point; the remnant of the earth certainly still struggled to feed themselves. Dozens of the horsemen’s future victims watched her climb, none of them knowing where their next meal would come from. She felt their eyes on her. She climbed higher. The sniper loomed nearer.
But what options do they have really? They could work all day and deliver kilos of trash in exchange for single slices of bread at the transfer stations, they can hunt rats to cook, beg for handouts, or join the Dog Pound.
The Dog Pound. That one still boggled Tanya’s mind. She understood how hard it could be for Markless to survive in this economy, but something about being reduced to a diet of dog food jarred her academic sensibilities like a kidney-punch. She wished there were a word or two to describe the wrongness she felt when thinking about grown men and women living on such a diet. She had heard all about the resurgence of the Black Plague stemming from over exposure to rats among the homeless. But hunting—even if it meant hunting rodents—still felt like an inherently human activity. It required strength, speed, or intelligence to accomplish. Begging too, while demeaning, at least had all of human history as a precedent to justify it. Even becoming human garbage trucks in exchange for bread felt like a façade of an honest day’s work. But being reduced to eating pet food? It was dehumanizing. Yes, that was the right word. Mental images of men and women on hands and knees eating from a dish scarred her every bit as badly as blood from a dying man’s throat.
That was the world. Too many people, not enough food. Not enough energy to grow it or to ship it to where it was needed. People did what they had to do in order to survive. Sure, the war had ended and the Oil Crash had finished crashing. Even the world economy had adjusted and started to climb again, providing the possibility for a decent standard of living and the hope of a real middle class at some indeterminate point in the future. But there were still too many starving. Millions upon millions, just in this one city. The most powerful gang in New York City reigned with the power they wielded through stolen dog food.
Insidious thoughts infected her mind. Maybe this crazy crusade is worth killing for. How many people could we really save if we provide energy to the world again? How many lives could we improve?
She crawled up another few feet, gravity firmly fastening her to the side of the building. Judging she had reached her desired altitude, she peeked around the conc
rete corner. The sniper crouched on a slim walkway behind the billboard about 4 meters above her. He didn’t notice her.
Damn it. Luthor was right. This guy needs to die. There was no turning back, the others were counting on her and stopping the sniper without killing him would be extremely hard. If she did nothing, then they were as good as dead. Time to face the music. Time to kill. I’ve got a chance to save those poor bastards down there, or else let the world rot.
Tanya removed the rest of her BOGs. She hoped four would be enough. She mashed them together and slapped them around the corner. Multiple Gs flattened her against the wall. She prayed that her gravity, combined with the earth’s own power would be enough to dislodge the sniper from his perfect vantage point. It was certainly enough to give her a headache.
An ear-crushing gunshot cracked above her. Tanya hoped her gravity alteration had caused it to be off-mark. An instant later the slender barrel of a sniper rifle tumbled down, accelerating toward the new center of gravity. It bounced off the wall and its inertia pushed it passed the BOG’s influence until it plummeted to the street.
The sniper himself evidently had not fallen. Now he was at least weaponless. Tanya mustered the courage to peek around the corner, but barely had the strength to do so. The gravity made each limb feel like an extra 20 kilograms of dead weight were strapped to it. Sure enough, the sniper hadn’t fallen. He dangled from the narrow architectural lip around one of the windows.
He grunted and strained as his fingertips tried to support the weight of a half dozen men his size. His grunts became the roar of a straining body-builder, until his voice echoed off the adjacent apartments. Then he fell. He shot down unnaturally quickly, like he had been ripped off by a tow rope. A terrified shriek tore from his vocal chords. He, like his gun before, bounced awkwardly as he slowed through Tanya’s gravity well. His momentum pushed him through the gravity dimple. She quickly split up the 126 just to make sure he kept falling. He bounced off the wall, spinning to the street below.
Tanya did not look to see the splatter at the street level. She had no desire to witness her handiwork. She climbed higher. It would be better to descend on another side of the building to avoid attracting attention.
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